Sermon Archive
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October 2021
Those Who Mourn
Our study through beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12) brings us to verse 4; “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” In last week’s message we saw that the Greek word for blessed, “makarios,” essentially means happy, but whatever the translation and whatever English word is used the juxtaposition of “makarios” (blessed, happy) with “pentheo” (mourning, lament) is provocative and also potentially confusing. Like water and wine, happiness and mourning seem to be mutually exclusive …
The Poor in Spirit
The sermon on the mount spans three chapters (5-7) in Matthew. If you have one of those Bibles that prints the words of Jesus in red then you will find that those chapters are nearly a solid block of red ink. I say “nearly” because the actual content of the sermon is sandwiched between two small bits of commentary about who was in the audience. In the opening verses of chapter 5 we are told that the “disciples came to Jesus… and He taught them,” (Matthew 5:1-2) and then if we fast…
You Are What You Eat
In the Bible, God often compares His Word to food. Consider the following examples:
When Jesus was being tempted by Satan He quoted Deuteronomy 8:3 saying, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Psalm 119:103- “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.”
Jeremiah 3:15- “Then I will give you shepherds after My own heart, who will feed you on knowledge and understanding.”
1 peter 2:2, calls us to “…
When Jesus was being tempted by Satan He quoted Deuteronomy 8:3 saying, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Psalm 119:103- “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.”
Jeremiah 3:15- “Then I will give you shepherds after My own heart, who will feed you on knowledge and understanding.”
1 peter 2:2, calls us to “…
September 2021
Dangerous Affections
The Bible gives no word of encouragement to those who would quit the life of a sojourner and make a home for themselves down here. We are, after all, the spiritual descendants of Abraham who lived in tents, not Lot who settled on the plain. 1 John 2:15-17 warns against some dangerous affections that threaten to replace loving God with a love for the world, and loving others with a love for the things of the world. Jesus said that we cannot serve two masters, for either we will hate the one …
The Root and the Fruit of Christian Fellowship
Are you lonely?
If you are, you might take some small comfort in knowing that you are not alone. A new report finds many Americans are lonely. The study, published by the global health service company Cigna, found that 46 percent of U.S. adults report chronic feelings of loneliness, being disconnected, and feeling as though they were being left out. Cigna calls those “epidemic levels.”
What’s more, only around half of Americans say they have meaningful in-person social interactio…
By This We Know Love
Here at State Road we talk a lot about becoming a people who love God, love others and love in action, but those statements rest on an implied assumption that we know what love is. In our culture, love is a notoriously difficult word to define. This is owing, at least in part, to the limitations of the English language. For example in Greek there are perhaps as many as 7 different words for love, four of which we find in o…
Loving God, Loving Others, Love in Action
When I was a boy growing up in Vermont I used to make a little extra money in late spring and early summer by gathering morel mushrooms in the woods and selling them to a local restaurant called “The Countryman’s Pleasure.” For whatever reason morels can’t be farmed or grown commercially, and so they have to be gathered in the wild. That’s why they bring such a high price. Today the going rate for fresh morels is about $30-35/pound.
It all felt slightly clandestine when …
August 2021
Prejudice
I don’t know about you, but along the way I have related to Jonah’s mistakes.
When he tried to quit his job as prophet and run away from the Lord’s calling on his life, I thought of times when I’ve been out of the Lord’s will and resisted doing the things that He wanted me to do.
When Jonah was on the ship and the sailors were terrified because the storm was threatening to break the boat up, I thought of times when my disobedience has affected others.
As he was sinkin…
Fitting the Messenger
What do the biblical accounts of Noah’s ark, the destruction of Sodom and Gommorha, and Jonah all have in common? In all three we find a wicked people living under the imminent threat of divine judgment, and we also find a servant of God who goes out with foreknowledge to warn the wicked to flee the coming day of wrath. But Jonah differs from these other two in that Unlike Noah and Lott, whose warnings landed on deaf ears, Jonah’s one-sentence sermon results in what was likely the great…
From A Dark Place
One of the interesting things about the book of Jonah is that, unlike other prophetic books, it focuses on the prophet rather than on the prophet’s message. Throughout Jonah is the object of God’s concern rather than the mouthpiece through whom God speaks His concerns as would normally befit a prophet. This Sunday we will be covering the second chapter of Jonah which is brief and filled almost entirely with the prayer that Jonah offered from the belly of the great fish. It is one of many ir…
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